Know thyself
One of the greatest pursuits in one’s life is to seek-out who we are.
Through world experience, trials and errors, great joys and immense sufferings, and the ongoing inner-dialogue that makes up a lifelong conversation between me, myself, and I, one would think that at some point along the way I might find a true and solid person within that I can attach my identity to. Socrates said to “know thyself”. But what is, the self?
Is the self that I should come to know, the thirty something me who likes to run and walk and read and eat and have long drawn out conversations with a tree about the state of the world? Is it the self that is in constant pursuit of learning and knowledge, that I should identify with? Am I the self who teaches the next generation to think and read and write? Or am I the self that I was as a child, with bright curiosity and an unfailing smile and cheery temperament? Perhaps, I should be the self who is brave and kind and strong, and ignore all of those icky bits that a strange onlooker would be in opposition to? Which self, dear Socrates am I supposed to identify as?
I suppose it is all my selves that make up the entirety of me. It is the past, and the present, and the hope for the future that designs my identity. But here’s the wrap… that future, and that me, walking through time and history is in constant fluctuation. How can I know myself as a solid and unwavering individual, have all of my questions answered, and walk off into the sunset with me, myself, and I, when that knowing of who I am changes?
Camus said in “The Myth of Sisyphus” that one can only know thyself in an approximate way. The world, like people, is absurd and contradictory. One moment we are emanating certain qualities and actions and voices, until something shifts in us or our surroundings and we shift to accommodate so as not to be thrown off balance into the abyss, left to fend for ourselves in contrast to our world.
How then, can I know myself if the self that I am is so many contradictory and fluctuating elements moving around as my identity? Perhaps, then, one does not know thyself in a concrete, “THIS IS ME” way. Rather, one learns to know how they change and react to new ideas, new behaviors, new challenges, and new faces of the world. To know thyself then becomes knowing the changes within the seasons of one’s mind and heart. I must understand myself as I understand the weather. There are predictable qualities in every season of who I am, but every now and then a snowfall occurs in August and residents must learn the best way for them to react. This perhaps, is the true way of knowing oneself, as I come to understand not who I am but how I am and what I do.
Perhaps, we shouldn’t then expect to know ourselves, but should instead seek know the seasons of our hearts and minds, learning whether we are the person who carries an umbrella in August or not.